Asexual rerproduction, cloning Dolly the Sheep

Hi,





On the topic of creating new organisms using unconventional methods, lets look at Dolly the sheep. She was created in Feb 1997 from a cell taken from the udder(milk producing glands)of a sheep. It is said that when male scientists were thinking of what to call the cloned sheep made from the udder(the equivalent in humans will be the breast) the scientists thought of Dolly Parton. View the video of this famous curvaceous country western singer and find out why.

As the offspring produced in this way is not the result of fusion of two gametes, the genetic material comes from one parent only. There will be no genetic variation. The offspring will be a carbon copy or clone. It will inherit all the genotypes of the single parent. However the phenotype may not be the same as the parent that donated the cell as environmental effects (on the multiple genes that decide the continuous variation traits) will kick in.

Cheers